Comments on PTI from July 10, 2007
Sometimes Pardon The Interruption fuels more food for thought than other times, and Tuesday night was one of those times. Here are some random thoughts:
- What difference will it make if baseball commissioner Bud Selig is in attendance when Barry Bonds breaks Hank Aaron’s career home run record? The attention this subject receives is by people who are reading way too much into this being some kind of statement Selig may or may not be making regarding steroids. But this event is not about Selig, it’s about Bonds. Does anyone remember if the commissioner of baseball (whoever it was at the time) attended the game that Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s record? Does anyone care? Nor will I care whether Selig shows up for this one.
- What exactly is the NBA summer league? I have no idea what this is. But apparently, it is held in Las Vegas and you get 10 fouls before you foul out. Hit your opponent on the court (up to 10 times) then hit the casinos. Sounds like fun to me.
- It was great to see tennis get 5 good minutes on PTI and especially good to see my favorite current player James Blake.
- Sorry Wilbon, but there is a zero percent chance that Alex Rodriques will be traded this year. Zero. He could very well opt out of his contract and leave the Yankees at the end of the year, but there is no way the Yankees are going to trade him.
- The toss up question of which is harder to win: the World Series of Poker or the Tour de France is actually an interesting question. The answer really depends on who it is more difficult to win for. It is more difficult for a professional player to win the WSOP because the reality is that just about anyone can win (amateur players have been runners-up). If you are the best poker player in the world, there is still a good chance you would not win the WSOP. If you are the best cyclist in the world, the chances are much better that you will win the Tour de France. But it is impossible for amateurs to win the Tour de France.
B.J. replied:
I know the Bonds story is old news by now, but I’m behind on my reading…
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At the time of Aaron hitting 715, it WAS a big deal that the commish (whose name I’ve heard a bunch in the past four months, but which escapes me at the moment) wasn’t there.
In defense of Aaron for not attending or Selig for trying to be there when he could, this is one of those records where you have NO IDEA when it’s going to happen! If he went on a cold streak, you could have been schlepping around from city to city for weeks when he was stuck on 755.
It’s not quite like Ripken breaking Gehrig’s record — you knew when it was going to happen, and you could plan accordingly.
Interesting fact: When McGwire hit #62 and when Bonds hit #756, I was in Los Angeles, California. [And I had not been there in between.] I’ll be there again on 9/24 and 9/25, so I’m sure a major baseball record will fall then, too!
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August 29, 2007 1:30 pm at 1:30 pm. Permalink.
bobsala replied:
OK, even if it was a big deal that the commissioner of baseball did not attend Hank Aaron hitting number 715, part of my point is that through the benefit of hindsight, it seems to me that no one remembers that it was a big deal and therefore my feeling is that it really wasn’t important after all. And the same lesson should have been learned when it came time for Bonds to break Aaron’s record.
August 29, 2007 9:12 pm at 9:12 pm. Permalink.